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Starbased

AI aside, GalCiv’s greatest gameplay achievement is the Starbase. Starbases are somewhat of a unique idea as far as games go. The scale of their effect on gameplay is not unlike that of shrines and temples in Warlords, but the way they do it is completely different.

First of all, starbases are created by the player using special constructor ships. Constructors take a long time to build and really aren’t practical until about one third of a way through a game. They’re also very slow and vulnerable, making them prime targets for enemies, pirates and space monsters. So why bother with them?

Well, first of all they capture strategic resources that can improve the morale, production or research of a race. Later, a starbase can be upgraded with further constructors to have better defensive structures, to improve the attack and defense of the player’s spaceships, make trade routes more lucrative, or gain a better effect from those strategic resources.

The mere existence of starbases adds depth to a game; their specific functions make them even better. They can speed up cultural victories, or shore up weaknesses in combat technology. Like chess, or go, (or onions and ogres), GalCiv has layers of depth that don’t overwhelm the player, but get added on in phases.

Wow the Torians voted my way!

Poor colony choice, but necessary to extend my ships' range

My economy is doing poorly (side graph)

The bad, the bad, and the ugly bad

For all its strengths, GalCiv is far from perfect. The interface can be a bit clumsy, which is somewhat of a surprise as GC is designed by a company that sells improvements to the Windows GUI. Like MOO3, it often shows the player unnecessary information. Unlike MOO3, with a few games it becomes easy to discern between important and unimportant data. A planet’s exact population, like that of a city in Civilization, is irrelevant. What’s more important is the quality of the planet, the happiness of the citizens, and its improvements.

Then there are new concepts like tax rate and spend rate, which can be confusing. You see, whereas previous 4X titles had a fixed rate of spending – that means that the computer spent Y credits every month, depending on the maintenance of improvements and units – GalCiv lets the player decide. Improvements cost a fixed amount in maintenance of course, but how much money is spent in total on research, improvements and military projects is decided by the player. Then adjustments to the individual research, social and military sliders can be made.

Graphically, GalCiv is a hair over on the good side of ‘acceptable’, but the sound is rather disappointing. Music can get old especially quickly, but the downloadable upgrade pack for paid GalCiv users offers many bonuses, an MP3 player among them.

You can cheat and see colonized areas by viewing population

Same with production

Technological frenzy

Finally, Galactic Civilizations isn’t exactly perfect on the gameplay front. While it may have adopted Civilization-style unit creation (ie, no customized units) and combat, it just doesn’t have the same zing to it as it should. Part of the reason is the unfamiliarity of the units – everyone can imagine an archer, a legionnaire and a rifleman. A space-borne battleship, frigate, or defenders are units without any character. Furthermore, there are far fewer units and unit types to play around with in GalCiv. A Battleship typically takes anywhere from 24 to 133 turns to build, depending on the planet. Since it is the first unit capable of assault defended starbases or planets, the combat that occurs before its appearance is not nearly as dramatic. To top things off, there are only two ships better than a Battleship – the Dreadnought and Ranger. Pardon us for lamenting the sorry state of combat even as we conquer the perfidious Torians with our trade goods and McDonald’s culture.